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advertisement<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nCarrie Downey, a single mother with a 17-year-old son, was diagnosed with colon cancer a year ago, but after just six months of treatment with a new anti-cancer drug, she is now fully recovered.<\/p>\n
The drug, dostarlimab, is currently in clinical trials and targets certain colorectal cancers that have genetic abnormalities in their cells. All patients have specific mismatch repair (MMR) gene mutations.<\/p>\n
According to Swansea Bay University Health Board, this genetic defect is present in 3.5% to 5% of rectal cancers.<\/p>\n
Ms Downey, 42, was told that depending on the location of the cancer, she might be left with a permanent stoma. A stoma is an opening in the abdomen through which the body’s waste products are expelled, collected in a small bag worn outdoors. body.<\/p>\n
She was referred to oncologist Dr Craig Barrington on behalf of South West Wales Cancer Centre.<\/p>\n
“He said something like, ‘What would you do if I told you that you could get the same results without having a permanent stoma or major surgery and no evidence of cancer?'” Downey said. said in a statement:<\/p>\n
\u201cHe tested my biopsy and knew I had this rare mutation. He asked me if I wanted to go ahead with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Downey received intravenous (IV) treatments of the drug three times a week for six months, with each treatment taking about 30 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was tired and had a rash here and there, but it was nothing compared to chemotherapy, radiation and surgery,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The tumor shrank during treatment and no evidence of disease remained at the end of the period.<\/p>\n
Mr Barrington said in a statement: “We are the first country in the UK, and together with Italy, in the world, to routinely include it as a treatment option.”<\/p>\n
“It doesn’t mean patients have to have it. It’s an additional tool in the toolbox, so to speak. But when a trial shows a 100 percent complete response, it’s hard to argue against that.”<\/p>\n
Medicine is still in clinical trials, but data is limited<\/h2>\n
Dostarlimab has been prescribed to 10 patients in Wales, but its use in the treatment of these rare rectal cancers is still being analyzed.<\/p>\n
The drug, sold by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) as Gemperi, was first approved in the European Union in 2021 to treat the condition. endometrial cancer<\/strong><\/a> It is advanced and has the same genetic abnormality.<\/p>\n A small clinical trial of 12 patients with rectal cancer in the United States revealed that New England Medical Journal<\/strong><\/a> In 2022, all patients were found to have had a complete clinical response.<\/p>\n The study concluded that this type of rectal cancer, known as mismatch repair-deficient\/high microsatellite instability (dMMR\/MSI-H), is “highly sensitive” to drugs, but “symptomatically Longer-term follow-up is needed to evaluate.” Duration of reaction\u201d.<\/p>\n There are further ongoing trials in the United States, but these are “single-arm trials” and therefore not randomized, which was cited as a cause for concern by U.S. authorities in February.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) committee concluded that data from two single-arm trials “characterized the benefits and risks” of using this drug to treat advanced rectal cancer with genetic abnormalities. They voted that it was “enough to<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 42-year-old woman had no evidence of cancer after receiving dostarimab, a drug still in early trials to treat a rare form of colorectal cancer. advertisement Carrie Downey, a single mother with a 17-year-old son, was diagnosed with colon cancer a year ago, but after just six months of treatment with a new anti-cancer drug, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3,4,1773,1586,587,1774],"class_list":["post-2757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colorectal-cancer","tag-cancer","tag-colon","tag-disappeared","tag-drug","tag-months","tag-womans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drhimanshuyadav.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drhimanshuyadav.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drhimanshuyadav.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drhimanshuyadav.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drhimanshuyadav.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drhimanshuyadav.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drhimanshuyadav.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drhimanshuyadav.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drhimanshuyadav.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}